In the White Sea a safety stop is seldom boring. At most places you can come up along the steep rocks while you enjoy the underwater landscape of plumose anemones. Don’t forget to look into the open water from time to time. Large free swimming jellyfishes with long white tentacles pass by on a regular basis. The jellyfishes are nice to see, but be careful that the tentacles don’t touch your face.

After three days of diving it is time for us to move to the next dive center. The same green truck that picked us up from the train station brings us to the Polar Dive Circle center. It’s very pleasant that this transfer does not cost us a dive day. We leave at the end of the day with two dives in our logbook. We arrive just before dinner, tomorrow we just continue on diving.  Polar Dive Circle lies more to the North of Russia and when we get of the truck we notice that it feels colder here. We are curious how the diving will be here. This centre is completely different than the boat of Nereis. Several wooden cottages are standing in a forestry environment. Besides the central building, where the daily meals are served, there are several guesthouses scattered around the forest. From the guesthouses a long walking path brings you to the harbor of the centre. Diving is organized somewhat different here. From the harbor zodiacs bring you within ten minutes to the different dive sites. With four divers you will be assigned a small cabin in the harbor. In these cabins, which stand on skis in preparation for winter time, a small oil stove is placed for heating.  In between the dives these cabins are ideal for drying out you suit or to warm up your underclothing for the next dive.

Diving is really different here. Diving in Nereis is almost always conducted along a steep drop-off. And at the end of the dive we returned to the boat ourselves. Here we are dropped by the zodiac on the dive site in the middle of the bay and we just descend freely to the bottom where we find amazing rock formations covered with dozens of plumose anemones. The size of these animals is amazing again. The water is about two degrees colder than in Nereis, and that is a difference you will notice. The sun gives the water the characteristic green color of the White Sea.